Sounds Like, For Once, It Went Right!

Neighbours said the incident appeared to have been a 'burglary that went wrong.'

A woman, who lives close the farm, said: 'The farm is in a remote location, quite deep in the valley and set back from the main road.

'I suspect it was an opportunistic burglary that has gone wrong.'

One thieving scumbag dead, another (hopefully) injured severely enough to give up a life of crime. A better result for society than the justice system provides.

Chief Superintendent Dave Kirby, of Derbyshire police, said he believed the incident was a 'targeted attack' and there was no wider risk to the public.

'Residents in the area will see an increased police presence in the area for some time as investigations continue and we will provide further updates as soon as we are able.'

Perhaps if you'd had that presence beforehand this wouldn't have happened. 

Hakuna Matata, Gillian...

Using English names for African wildlife is 'jarring', a BBC Springwatch presenter has claimed. Gillian Burke said she prefers to refer to animals by their traditional Swahili names rather than those commonly used in the broadcaster's acclaimed nature programmes. The 49-year-old speculated that there is an 'inequality' in 'who gets to do the naming' and we are 'unwittingly wielding some form of power by naming wild animals'.

*sighs* Oh, well. A lifetime of reading African safari novels & non-fiction has at least stood me in good stead here! 

Writing in BBC Wildlife magazine, Burke said: 'The English names for East Africa's iconic wildlife - so heavily featured in natural history films and in this magazine - jar, at least to my ear.

'In my own writing I prefer re-introducing these familiar animals by their Swahili names: ndovu (elephant), twiga (giraffe), fisi (hyena) and my personal favourite, because I used to love how my dad said it, kongoni (hartebeest).'

Wait, what? Ndovu? It's Tembo, surely?  

 

It Really Is 'The Land Of Fruits And Nuts'...

UCLA medical school had been condemned by a renowned Harvard doctor for forcing students to take a 'fat-positivity' class.

Yes, you read that right - medical school.

All first year medical students at UCLA are required to read an essay by Marquisele Mercedes, a self-proclaimed 'fat liberationist' who claims that 'fatphobia is medicine's status quo' and that weight loss is a 'hopeless endeavor.'

Just put down the doughnuts, Marquisele! It can be done!

Jeffrey Flier, the former dean of Harvard Medical School and one of the world's foremost experts on obesity, slammed the course and said the curriculum 'promotes extensive and dangerous misinformation.'

UCLA 'has centered this required course on a socialist/Marxist ideology that is totally inappropriate,' said Flier. 'As a longstanding medical educator, I found this course truly shocking.'

If you're only just now shocked by how far prestigious universities have fallen down the DEI rabbit hole, you need to read more. 

The essay by Mercedes details how weight has come to be 'pathologized and medicalized in racialized terms.'

She offers guidance on 'resisting entrenched fat oppression,' according to the course syllabus. Mercedes claims that 'ob*sity' is a slur 'used to exact violence on fat people' - particularly 'Black, disabled, trans, poor fat people.'

Oh, of course! The Alphabet Mob shows up. 

She uses her social media account to voice more of her 'fat-positivity' activism. 'It's so f***ing isolating to be a disabled Black fat person working towards individual and collective liberation,' she wrote in an Instagram post - adding that being fat is a disability.

She has also led presentations on how does 'anti-fatness show up in the work you do' - which she says includes using 'fear-mongering language in order to encourage healthy eating and physical activity.' Mercedes also taught students in a public health seminar that 'fat people are forced to contend with anti-fatness every day in every domain across the lifespan.'

Which lifespan is going to be pretty short, so every cloud, eh, Marquisele? 

She can't even carry the other lunatics in Cali:

Nicholas Christakis is a sociologist who has spent decades providing medical care to underserved communities - including in the South Side of Chicago. He has called the curriculum 'nonsensical' and says that the course is 'embarrassing to UCLA.'

I think it's immune, Nicholas. 

This Is A Good Thing...

...not a mark of disaster.

The YouGov survey for the Department of Politics at Royal Holloway University of London found 24 per cent of Londoners aged 18 to 24 were not aware of this legal requirement for local and regional elections in England and at the general election.

Because frankly, if they are so incurious as to have ignored all the adverts, the posters (one went up in my Tube station last week) and the mailshots, not to mention all the MSM and social media campaigns, then they are people who shouldn't deserve a vote, and if they are turned away, it can only improve society. 

This compares to four per cent of Londoners aged 65 and over having this lack of awareness about the need for photo ID, seven per cent for 50 to 64-year-olds, and 13 per cent for the 25-49 age group.

And these will have been people voting without it for most of their lives. They've managed. Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?  

Streaming TV: Moon Knight (Disney+)

Disney+ has been an absolute powerhouse for Marvel, and clearly the back catalogue is vast, so I was a bit surprised they went with this particular character. 

I did at least know the character and some of the backstory this time, though it was never a series I read, as he turned up in lots of other comics I was reading at the time. But I was surprised at the choice. And the very first trailer - introducing us to Oscar Isaac's rather strange interpretation of an English accent - didn't really make me say 'Wow! Got to catch this one!'.

But of course, I did, and was hooked! The main protagonists worked well, and F Murray Abraham's Khonshu was a delight! And there were some inspired musical choices. I see a second season isn't on the cards, and that's a real pity.

It's Why Everyone Else Joined, Surely?

A new bill in the state, known as SB 375, was being pored over on Monday by legislators, LGBTQ groups and educators before the state Education Committee. It is one of two bills in the state that would ban transgender girls from competing on sports teams aligning with their gender identity.

Just the 'girls'? Is that because no 'men' try this trick, perchance? That should tell you someing in and of itself, shouldn't it?

Trans teen Maelle Jacques, who was born a male and previously won a girl's high jump state championship, insisted she didn't join female sports to win outright.

I think that's similar to 'saying the quiet part out loud, 'Michelle'... 

Jacques told the hearing: 'I'm here to testify in opposition of SB375. Throughout my entire life, sports have been an integral part to my belonging.

Her testimony continued: 'Playing soccer since the age of three, when I began my transition in the sixth grade my school welcomed me onto the girls team.

'This act of being part of the team allowed me to skip through the phase of social ostracization. The other girls accepted me as who I was.

'Being part of the team allowed me to be seen as normal, where everywhere else I could be perceived as a pariah.

'I didn't join sports with the goal of dominating competition or being better than anyone else.

Did you ever ask the real girls if that was true for them?  

'No one would go through the bullying and self hatred of transition purely to win a sport, especially woman's sports, which are under appreciated in our nation.

'I joined because it is something I am passionate about and enjoy. If banned from sports teams and locker rooms, joining male teams wouldn't be a choice for me.'

Why The Kid Glove Treatment?

Yesterday, as the horrific events unfolded in Hainault, I spent a fair amount of time on social media, correcting idiots who demanded the police should shoot the attacker dead 'like they would if it was a dog on the rampage' and not worry about taking him alive. 

Not how justice is done here, I informed them, do we really want the police to act like a Third World Police Force or something out of a dystopian movie? Let justice be done properly, I said.

Boy, do I feel like an idiot now! 

He has since been arrested on suspicion of murder, although police are yet to question the suspect as he remains in hospital being treated for injuries sustained in the van crash.

Yes, you read that right. A man who rampaged around the streets attacking and murdering random people, jumping over fences and climbing on top of garages for 20 minutes after crashing the van, is apparently too frail to be questioned. 

'He was running around, still after the police officers came, with the sword in his hand.'

You couldn't make it up, could you? 

Tweet Of The Month

Post Title Of The Month

Longrider on what may be a cunning publicity stunt:

Quote Of The Month

David Thompson feels the same way I do about a once but no longer 'must-visit' website ruined by progressives:

"I’ve said before, regarding the pop-culture site io9, the more insufferably woke the site has become, the more generic and unwritten its content feels. By which I mean, it was once possible to stumble across lengthy articles on niche pop-culture subjects, often written with an affectionate expertise. Now, however, it’s difficult to differentiate one contributor from another. The content doesn’t read as if anyone in particular wrote it. It’s flavourless, uniform in its politics and ideological assumptions, both pointedly announced, and uniform in its tone. It might as well be generated by an algorithm."